Who was really answering children's letters to Santa Claus
Before Canada Post took on the task, many letters went to Minnedosa, Man.
Kids who write a letter to Santa Claus at the North Pole in Canada can be sure of getting a response if they sent their laatter by Dec. 7 in 2023, according to the Canada Post website.
Back in the 1970s, the "grand old man in the bright red suit," as CBC host Knowlton Nash called him, had help from a woman known to some as Mrs. Claus, but to others as Verna Green.
In a Manitoba town, her husband Charlie Green picked up the pre-Christmas mail every day.
"At this time of year, most of the letters are addressed to Santa Claus, Minnedosa, Manitoba," said reporter Terry Matte on CBC's The National on Dec. 15, 1978.
"Sometimes there is also a fictitious street address: 1 Snowflake Lane."
How it started
The tradition had started when Charlie Green ran a store in town, and kids would put their letters to Santa in a box in the shop as Christmas approached.
Eventually, Verna Green started answering them — and she had kept it up for over 30 years.
Word had spread over time, and Santa's mail came in from all parts of the country. Green expected to write 500 replies by Christmas Day.
"It brings Christmas back to us," she said. "Our family have gone. Our grandchildren live elsewhere, and it just makes Christmas all the nicer for us."
But she wished more correspondents would include self-addressed stamped envelopes with their letters.
Why? "Her hobby has become a bit expensive," noted Matte.
But that didn't stop her from continuing the tradition.
"I just love to get them. I really do," said Green. " And Mr. Green does, too."
Canada Post takes over
In 1982, Canada Post took on the task of dealing with kids' letters to Santa.
According to The Canadian Press, that was the year Santa Claus got his own dedicated postal code at the North Pole (HOH OHO).
"A growing number of post office employees and pensioners ... have volunteered to act as Santa's helpers," Canada Post President Michael Warren told the wire service.
Prior to having an official system in place for dealing with letters, according to the Globe and Mail, Canada Post employees would not return letters to Santa.
"But postal workers do open letters addressed to Santa to see if children have included money to encourage him to visit them," said an article dated Dec. 10, 1981. "If so, they send the money back to the parents."
By 1985, the post office's Santa Claus response team was well established, as host Keith Morrison reported on CBC's The Journal.
"No matter what you may think of it the rest of the year, at this season the post office has earned a season's greeting," he began, with a graphic of a cartoon mailbox in a Santa hat behind him.
(He was likely referring to an unpopular hike in the price of stamps and a postal strike in 1981.)
"Every year the post office receives half a million letters to Santa, and for the last four years, those letters have been scrupulously dealt with," he said.
Some 6,000 volunteers had signed up to respond to the letters.
Even letters not written in English got a response in the language they were written in, including Braille.
For the letters that were more complicated than a request for toys, social workers were also available to help.
"I think we have a moral commitment to ensure that not only children receive letters from Santa Claus, but ... receive the help that is available to them," said Connie Read of Canada Post.
One request was even trickier, though: the kids who asked for a new sibling.
"For what it's worth, more children want sisters than brothers," noted Morrison.
